More on School – Part II

Well this afternoon I was called in for a meeting with HJ6’s teacher.  It seems that I am not the only one with concerns.

He melts down in class now.  Just cries when stuff happens.  Like when they worked out who needed to get a new glue stick and his name was on the board.  Like when his computer didn’t boot properly.  Not ask for help, not question anything, just cry.  Or, as he said at one point, “I didn’t really cry – I held it inside”.  Hmmm.  So much better.

We talked about what has been happening in his class, and when the “split classes” are happening.  (We also talked about why this has been happening, and why it has been happening so much.)

And during the course of the conversation his teacher had the chance to see some of the behaviour that we have at home.  Likewise, I had the chance to have demonstrated that my child is quite capable of being disobedient, disrespectful and rude.  Fantastic.  His teacher was horrified, but not really surprised.

I don’t know.  Am I too soft on him?  Am I too hard on him?  His brother and sister are pretty bad, too.  Am I such a bad parent?  Is this not about me at all?

It is all too much, sometimes.

More chest pains.

More on School…

I don’t know what to do about HJ6.  He is a sensitive and anxious little boy.  This year he started Kindergarten at “Big School”, after two somewhat tough and sometimes enjoyable years at preschool.  He was very upset about leaving preschool – after two years he had finally settled in, and, to be honest, the routine of the preschool suited him very well – by the end.

This year has been quite a challenge.  We are nearing the end of the second term and things are not the way I would like them to be.

For example, this morning we had tears, tantrums, kicking, fighting, protesting from the moment he opened his eyes.  He didn’t want to go to school.  Or should I say, he did NOT want to go to school.

Yesterday his teacher was away sick.  His class did not have a substitute teacher; instead they were split amongst other classes in the infants school.

This is the fifth time in three weeks that his class has been split up like this, although only the first time for the full day.  I know that this time his teacher was sick, but you would think that they could get a substitute.  I know that one other occasion, his teacher’s son was ill and she had to leave early to look after him, and that is fair enough.  I have no idea about the other three.  I do know that had she not been sick, she had another “meeting” she needed to attend yesterday afternoon, and the class would have been teacherless again.

Also, there are so many teachers for these poor little kids.  They have two teachers-one on Mondays and the other Tuesday through Friday.  They also have specialty teachers as follows:

• library (x2)
• Catechism
• music (regular teacher on sick leave for term 2)
• computing
• French (different teacher for terms 1 and 2)
• Friday sports

Plus they have had a student teacher as well.

He told me this morning (eventually) that he didn’t want to go to school because his teacher was too bossy, and that scared him.  I explained to him that she had to be bossy sometimes as she was looking after lots of kids and they didn’t always do what they were supposed to do.  His teacher is really quite friendly, if a little gregarious.  Normally he thinks she is okay.

I think a lot of his hesitancy is to do with the constant changes, having no idea what to expect when he goes to school.  I really don’t think that he feels so safe there just now.

And let’s take a moment to talk about the literacy programme, shall we?  In his class on Mondays, the kids go and get their own readers to take home and don’t have to have it checked by the teacher.  Consequently, each week, they all go up one reading level.  It has become quite ridiculous, with several kids now taking home books they can’t read, so they don’t read at all, and don’t like reading anymore.  HJ6 has just reached this point.  The books he has this week he can sound out the words, but it is every single word, not words here and there.  Reading time is a fight, now, too.

And the sight words!  Well, all term he has been waiting to get his sight words tested.  That’s what, eight weeks?  His best friend (whose mother volunteers for reading groups) gets tested every day, so now, instead of being just a week ahead of him, he is four levels higher.  Apparently it is up to the kids to hassle the teacher to test them.  What?  These are kindies!  Surely the teachers should be able to work that out for themselves.

So all that is breaking my heart.  But worst is the fight to make him go.  I hate all the fighting.  He comes home down and tired.  He won’t do his homework.  He grumps and growls all night (except for when he sometimes explodes) and then the mornings are even worse.

Except occasionally.  On Monday he couldn’t wait to go to school.  I had to wait for him in the playground until the teachers came on duty, half an hour before school started.

I can’t cope with all this.  I can’t cope with watching it and I can’t cope with what I go through.  This morning, my hubby took him to school.  I sat down and cried.  I wake in the mornings in dread.  As I sat on the lounge exhausted, I couldn’t help thinking that the headaches, the pains in my chest and neck, the upset tummy (I can’t eat in the mornings anymore) were not all just symptoms of my anxiety.

Some of my close friends have asked me about changing schools.  I think about it, but I know that the change would be such a big deal to him, especially as he has so many friends at school.  I am even reluctant to ask about changing classes within the school (an offer which has previously been made) because of the disruption it would cause him.

And really, a new school would mean extra commitment on my part. I just don’t see how I could manage doing the school run twice a day by car.  Not at this stage, anyway.  It is hard enough when we can do it by foot.

So I am torn.  I don’t know what to do.  I need to talk to his teacher, but she is never available.  I am getting more and more upset by stuff, and there are more things happening that just don’t seem right for him.  It is so hard to be the Mum.  He already tells me that it is all my fault, anything that goes wrong with any of these things, from shoelaces being undone to who knows what.  I just agree.  Everyone blames their Mum.  But in the mean time I am cursed with anxiety about what to do.

I just don’t know.  I just know that it is killing us all.

Do you Ever Just Want to Cry?

Sometimes, I do.  Like now.  I am not particularly upset about anything, but I think I am emotionally over-rort.

Winter seems to have settled in here.  The days (and nights) are really cold and it has been raining for most of this month as well.  Cold rain.

Maybe if I walked in it, it would wash away all my wearies, but I doubt it.  I think that I would just end up cold and wet as well as all else.

Today I had a couple of friends over, with the younger members of their respective broods.  It was a nice day in many ways, but it was also very tough.  At the end of the day, I was totally exhausted.  My house looks like a bomb has hit it (even after we cleaned up), the best I could do in the backyard was drag stuff that shouldn’t get wet under cover, the cubby house door has been kicked in and broken (by the one child that is, you know, that child), and somehow I need to keep functioning to not only clean up, but prepare dinner and do the night rituals solo mio as tonight is my husband’s squash night.

You know, sometimes it is too much.  I am tired and cranky now.  I don’t want to deal with tired, cranky kids suffering from cabin fever from the rain.  I don’t want to do it on my own, either.  I hate squash night.

And I hate being a slave to the school bell.  One of my friends that came by today used to be a regular squash night catch up.  The kids would play until the end of the day, we’d toss them all in a bath together and plonk them in pjs.  Then it was simply home to dinner and bed (or wave bye-bye, dinner and bed).  Now we have to call it quits too early for that, so that we can do school pick-ups.

I guess I am also annoyed at my eldest son (HJ6)’s school.  He is a sensitive soul and also suffers a lot of anxiety.  Transition to school has not been smooth.  By the end of the first term we were starting to make some progress.  This term has been a mess.  The poor lad is working so hard on his “sight words”, but his teacher won’t test him, despite testing others.  You see, they have to ask (yeah, nag) to be tested.  My timid, introverted, anxious, sensitive child can’t do that.  He asks sometimes, but that takes everything he has got, and so far it has come to nothing.  Also, there have been a lot of times lately when they haven’t had a class teacher and has been dispersed amongst other classes.  I am not happy about this, not as a regular thing.  It is a whole other post.  But I was really annoyed when I picked him up today to find out that he had spent the entire day in another room.  In another grade.  Not really doing any work.  Again.  He could have been home playing with us.

You see, I like the idea of homeschooling.  I haven’t been able to do it this year for two significant reasons:

1. My younger kids are too demanding and I wouldn’t be able to give it the attention required
2. My health

So I feel like I have failed my son by sending him to school, especially given his anxieties etc.  This makes me even more angry when the school/system fails me.

What I want to know is if this is a bad-luck aberration or if this is the way things are run at this school.  And what I don’t understand, is why am I the only parent concerned by all this.

I don’t need this concern.  Not today.  Not on a day when discovering that the capsicum I had bought for dinner tonight has been eaten spirals me into defeat and tears.

Today I need gentle treatment.  I needed HJ6 to come home with a Violet Word list and a smile.  I need happy kids that will fall into bed early.

I need space and energy to have a good cry.